rainy day and pretty pie

well the day (yesterday) started off kinda slow. i woke up to rain, so no walking with the new receptionist valerie and i'm still a bit stuffy in the head so the netty pot was definitely in order. after a little breakfast and reading some political blogs, it was time to get to work. and when i say get to work, i mean watch a little t.v. and shop online. it is my day off ya know. i needed to get some ring binders for my negatives and i got an archival box to store some photo books that i hold very dear. (i will post about my books when my box gets here) i also bought some film. that's right...FILM. i then began the tremendous organization of all things photographic in the office. after years and years of neglect it now takes me half a day to find anything. when all is said and done, i hope to have a really groovy system in place. right now it is a total mess with negatives lying all around. so far the pups have been very good when they come in the office and haven't destroyed anything. same thing cannot be said about the dog couch on the back porch. cleveland has decided to use one corner as a chew toy. here are some pics from the lazy morning.

very rainy. not a good day for picture taking.

my backyard. ok, i have a river running through it, but where is brad pitt?

maisy is sad because she can't go outside due to the rain.

total momma's boy.

my nice clean office is now a mess.

after a while it was time to get hopping in the kitchen. so here i am making more bread. same recipe as before from the fresh loaf. this time, however, after the first rise i split the dough into big roll size pieces just for fun. i won't bore you with all the poolish and rising details...this time. we also had some pears still in the frig bout to go bad, so i decided to make pie. i found a recipe for apple custard pie in the moosewood cookbook that i borrowed from the library. but instead of apples, of course, i used pears. here is a pic of the pie crust i made.

nice pastry patch job

in go the peeled and sliced pears

in goes the custard. ready to bake.

DONE!! isn't she pretty. since the weather was nice i thought it would be really homey (and quite dorky) to let the pie cool by the open window.

pretty pie

after i made the pie, the bread was done with the second rise. time to bake the bread. here are the finished rolls. some of my best bread so far. silly boy ray was very hungry when he got home from work and wanted a PB&J sandwich, but i held out for the bread. so for dinner (last night) i had a fresh yummy baked jumbo roll and local organic tomatoes, fresh basil from the front porch, raw cow's milk cheddar cheese, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar.


tonight i had a very healthy dinner of left over pear custard pie and ice cream. yummy. good thing i am going for a walk with the new receptionist valerie in the morning. here is the basic recipe for the pear custard pie from the new moosewood cookbook as i used it to make my pie.

the crust:
6 tbs butter
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
4 tbs. cold milk

the filling:
4 small pears, peeled and thinly sliced
4 eggs
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup yogurt (i used my homemade yogurt, but i didn't have a whole cup.
so really it was about 3/4 cup yogurt and 1/4 cup milk)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

make the pie crust as you would make your pie crust. fill crust with pears. mix rest of filling ingredients in food processor or blender and whip till frothy. (my food processor was dirty from making the pie crust, so i just used my hand blender thing) pour custard over pears. bake 45 minutes in preheated 375 degree oven. let cool for 1 hour. serve room temp or cold.

the pears i used were still kinda hard on the inside, even though they were looking a little rough on the outside. i thought that they would soften up while the pie baked. not so much. pears still a bit crunchy, but otherwise a very tasty pie. especially the next night for dinner.